The U.S. trade deficit widened sharply in May as exports fell, but subsiding imports suggested trade could still lead an anticipated rebound in economic growth in the second quarter. The trade gap increased 18.7% to $71.5 billion in May, the Commerce Department's Bureau of Economic Analysis said on Thursday.
Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem said during a public meeting on Wednesday that she is trusting advisers to provide counsel on how to fire people who "don't like us." read more
Multiple studies have found that the use of generative AI tools can harm intelligence and creativity. Here's how to use it to make you smarter, not dumber.
CBS owner Paramount has reached a $16 million settlement with President Donald Trump over his claim that 60 Minutes deceptively manipulated a pre-election interview with Kamala Harris. Trump's lawsuit has been widely described as frivolous, but Paramount seemed motivated to settle because its pending $8.4 billion merger with Skydance needed regulatory approval from the Trump administration.
Columbia University has confirmed a data breach involving personal information of students and applicants ... read more
Another view ...
US added 147,000 jobs last month, despite economic uncertainty
www.newsnationnow.com
... So far this year employers have added an average 124,000 jobs a month, down from 168,000 in 2024 ...
The president's deportations -- and the threat of them -- also are likely to start having an impact on the job market by driving immigrants out of the job market.
In May, the U.S. labor force -- those working and looking for work -- fell by 625,000, the biggest drop in a year and a half. ...
Economic uncertainty casts shadow over June's solid jobs report
www.axios.com
... Zoom in: Conditions look less cheery beneath the surface. The private sector added just 74,000 jobs in June, almost half as many as the previous month.
- - - Jobs growth was overwhelmingly concentrated in state and local government, with less impressive gains in the most cyclical sectors -- that is, those most exposed to the weakening economy.
- - - State and local government added 73,000 jobs, offsetting the continued declines in federal government (-7,000) from DOGE-related layoffs. The other big gainer was health care, which added 39,000 jobs.
- - - While the number of unemployed Americans fell, the labor force also continued to shrink for the second consecutive month, helping keep downward pressure on the unemployment rate. Another 130,000 workers exited the workforce in June. ...
Trump tax bill averts one debt crisis but makes future financial woes worse
www.reuters.com
... President Donald Trump's tax-cut and spending bill, which passed Congress on Thursday, averts the near-term prospect of a U.S. government default but makes America's long-term debt problems even worse. ...
Longer term, however, the bill has largely been seen as bad news for the U.S. bond market and the nation's fiscal health. It will add $3.4 trillion to the nation's debt over the next decade, nonpartisan analysts have estimated.
That would exacerbate concerns over additional bond supply and dwindling demand for U.S. Treasuries that have been a key driver of financial markets in recent months.
"The bill contributes to some of the structural concerns around Treasuries, with respect to No. 1, ongoing fiscal deficit and elevated debt levels, and No. 2, inflation," said Mike Medeiros, macro strategist at Wellington Management.
BlackRock warned on Monday that foreign buyers were already souring on American debt. There was a real risk that demand for the $500 billion in debt the U.S. issues every week will fall even more and push borrowing costs higher.
"We've been highlighting the precarious position of the U.S. government's indebtedness for some time now, and, if left unchecked, we view debt as the single greatest risk to the 'special status' of the U.S. in financial markets," BlackRock's investment managers said in a note. ...
@#17 ... The new genetics of intelligence - PMC ...
OK, I note your new alias' inability to provide a link. But I found ...
The new genetics of intelligence
pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
... As a library, NLM provides access to scientific literature. Inclusion in an NLM database does not imply endorsement of, or agreement with, the contents by NLM or the National Institutes of Health. ...bv
Intelligence -- the ability to learn, reason and solve problems -- is at the forefront of behavioural genetic research. Intelligence is highly heritable and predicts important educational, occupational and health outcomes better than any other trait.
Recent genome-wide association studies have successfully identified inherited genome sequence differences that account for 20% of the 50% heritability of intelligence. ...
OK, so less than 50% of intelligence seems to be genome related?
What else your new alias got?
Another aspect of this massive debt ...
Pres Trump has been giving Chmn Powell grief about not lowering interest rates.
Yet Pres Trump is requiring the US to borrow more, a lot more, A LOT MORE.
So, the basic economic rules of supply and demand apply also to US bonds ...
If you want more people to buy them, you have to lower the price. But, with bonds, when you lower the price the interest rates goes up.
So, Pres Trump's demand for Chmn Powell to lower interest rates, is that making it more difficult for the US to finance it's debt?
Add to that ... China, a major purchaser of US debt in the past seems to be backing off from those purchases, maybe even trying to sell the bonds it current owns.
Is China Engaging in Large-Scale Dumping of US Treasury Securities? (April 2025)
internationalbanker.com
... Speculation has persisted that China did not, in fact, "ignore" the Trump tariffs but instead dumped substantial quantities of its US debt holdings. "China may be selling Treasuries in retaliation," wrote Ataru Okumura, a senior interest-rate strategist at SMBC Nikko Securities in Tokyo, in a note to clients, as reported by Bloomberg on April 11. If so, China has an incentive to show "it won't hesitate to cause turmoil in the global financial market in order to improve its negotiating power against the US".
Yields also markedly rose overnight after US markets closed, when overseas markets were active. "These overnight spikes are more than just market noise. They may be the clearest signal yet that China is quietly -- but deliberately -- selling US Treasuries," Joel Shulman, the founder, managing director and CIO of EntrepreneurShares, observed in an April 9 article for Forbes. "And the implications could be significant for the US economy and financial markets."
When reviewing China's recent actions regarding its net US bondholdings"a period that has seen the country sell substantially more US Treasuries than it has bought -- one might be inclined to suggest that Beijing could be behind this latest bond-market rout. ...
Yeah, remember when Pres Trump TACO'd on his huge China tariffs within days?
Could the above be the reason?
imo, this does not not look like a happy outcome to me.
Likely why Three Mile Island is being reactivated.
Three Mile Island nuclear plant will reopen to power Microsoft data centers (September 2024)
www.npr.org
Of course, Three Mile Island was so successful in the past ...
/s
@#18 ... The ICE budget was increased enough in the Big Fascist Bill to do just that. ...
Likely because Pres trump likes this aspect of ICE...
Inside ICE's superpowers (June 29, 2025)
www.axios.com
... The images of masked, heavily armed immigration agents snatching people off the streets and taking them away in unmarked cars have shocked many Americans " and led to a simple question: Is all of this legal?
- - - It is -- at least for now.
Why it matters: Since Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) was created after the 9/11 attacks, its agents have operated with vastly more enforcement power, less transparency and fewer guardrails than local police.
- - - ICE's rules were designed largely to give the agency broad leeway in helping the FBI identify and arrest domestic terror suspects.
- - - Now the Trump administration is using that power to go after unauthorized immigrants " potentially millions of them " with a frequency and aggressiveness that has sent ripples through communities nationwide. ...
@#9 ... Waltzing Matilda ...
And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda
en.wikipedia.org
... "And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda" is a song written by Scottish-born Australian singer-songwriter Eric Bogle in 1971. The song describes war as futile and gruesome, and criticises its glorification. ...
The song is an account of the memories of an old Australian man who, in his youth, had traveled across rural Australia as a swagman, "waltzing [his] Matilda" (carrying his "swag", a combination of portable sleeping gear and luggage) all over the bush and the outback. ...
@#14 ... What actually CAUSES the deficit is out of control spending. ...
Do try harder.
What causes the deficit is spending that is more than the income.
Nothing more, nothing less.
What else yer got?